


five things you know and the one you don't

by novelteas



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: M/M, Oop, also can someone teach me how to write from literally ANY point of view excEPT for peter jakes, clowning over these two, hey it's just me! being a dumbass, i'm projecting WAY TOO HARD, sort of canon divergence but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:20:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21646690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novelteas/pseuds/novelteas
Summary: first. he touches you and you light on fire. your wrist blazes where his fingers meet your skin. the burns don’t show, but it’s hard to breathe with ash in your lungs. it’s so hard to breathe. you’re suffocating daily.second. it hurts to watch him. he shines. he’s brighter than the sun, he’s too beautiful for your eyes. it’s hard to look at him. it’s even harder to look away from him. you’re going blind.third. your ears are tuned to his voice. you could pick him out in a sea of thousands. his voice makes pretty singers who sing pretty songs sound dull. his voice makes everything else sound ugly.fourth. the color of his eyes is blue enough to drown in. he is turning you into a clichéd love-wrecked being. you’re drowning, always sinking. down, down, down.fifth. you know him. you love him. through a thousand lifetimes, across millions of stars, you’d find him, you’d never leave him. you love him, till death do you part.(sixth. he loves you, too.)
Relationships: Peter Jakes/Endeavour Morse
Comments: 15
Kudos: 44





	five things you know and the one you don't

**may 1965**

_first. he touches you and you light on fire. your wrist blazes where his fingers meet your skin. the burns don't show, but it's hard to breathe with ash in your lungs. it's so hard to breathe. you're suffocating daily._

Peter couldn't look. He couldn't bring himself to glance to the side, wanted almost to walk faster so Morse couldn't catch up and would just walk behind him. And yet he couldn't, because wouldn't that just be a mean thing to do, make Morse walk behind him like a child waiting to be admonished, a criminal on the way to the cells? If it had been six hours earlier, he would have done it. Fuck Morse, fuck the highly-educated prick who was swanning about like he owned the place, winning over Thursday and the uniforms, offering his opinion where it wasn't needed. But now it would just be petty. He'd just been stabbed. Peter slowed down a bit. 

The coat room was empty when they reached it, not that Peter thought there would be anyone in there at this hour. He wrinkled his nose at the dim lighting. It had been awhile since he'd come in here; he wasn't even sure his locker still had his name on it. It would be unheard of for a uniform to claim it without asking, especially since he still kept things in it, but still. And come to think of it, he added as a footnote to himself, he wasn't even sure a shirt of his would fit Morse. "Sit," he commanded, pointing at the bench in the middle of the room. "You look like proper shit."

"It's fine," Morse said, shaking his head. He stayed standing.

Peter rolled his eyes. _Fucking knob._ "I don't know if it'll fit you," he said, opening his locker. He stared at the two shirts hanging inside, picked a favorite between the two. Identical, weren't they, and yet he still did. The lesser-favorite was always the one he lent out, if ever. He knew better than to lend shirts out; four times out of five they'd come back with loose threads or creased collars. But it was on Bright's orders, wasn't it, so it wasn't as if he had a choice. And besides, if anyone was going to treat a tailored shirt properly, it would be some highly educated arsehole like Morse.

He took out the favorite. "Here," he said, pulling the shirt off the hanger and thrusting it towards Morse, who had already undone his own.

 _Thanks,_ Morse said, by way of nodding. He reached out for the shirt and took it from Peter, knuckles brushing up against his.

Peter wanted to vomit. He hated that they were just standing here in the locker room, pretending they were mates, borrowing a shirt from each other. He hated that they were alike and similar, that underneath all the tailored suits and the stupid classic literature quotes, they were two coppers on the same team. He hated that they were standing here, across the bench from each other, one of them half-undressed, like they'd known each other all their life. He remembered laughing with a few of the other officers once after work, in the pub, after Morse had just come to the station. _He was up at Oxford,_ one of them had said. _But he dropped out._

 _Just as well,_ Peter had said. _Can't imagine going to school with him. I'd sooner have thrown myself out the window._ Would he have, though? Peter wondered now. Perhaps if they'd grown up together he'd be a different person. He glanced up at Morse as he let go of his precious shirt, then looked away as soon as they made eye contact. His throat felt tight. Jesus, fuck, he needed a cigarette, but the locker room had no ventilation.

He leaned against the door to watch as Morse did the buttons. Watching was the wrong word — staring was more like it, staring in hungry fascination. He eyed the crusted bloodstain on Morse's undershirt. "That's not clean."

Morse looked back at him. "If the stitches break," he said, letting Peter put the rest together.

Peter frowned. "I want it back, clean, starched, and pressed," he huffed, keeping his voice as even as possible. Was he really just standing here, leaning against the door, watching Morse change shirts? Fuck the ventilation. He dug out his pack of cigarettes, held one between his lips while he rifled through his pocket for his lighter, kept on staring, stared as Morse winced at the pain of tucking his shirt in. _Imagine going to school with him,_ Peter thought to himself. He'd gotten plenty of scrapes and scratches growing up, playing around outside, wished someone besides the stern matrons had taken care of them. He softened a bit. "You sure you're fit for duty?"

Morse grunted, folded up the collar against his neck. "Looks much worse than it feels," he said.

Peter found his lighter finally and lit the cigarette, ignored Morse's disparaging glance in the mirror. His chest still felt like it was caving in, maybe more so than it was before. He took another drag, exhaled entirely, tried to imagine his lungs weren't choking with smoke and confusion and anger. (Or maybe not anger. Maybe it was something else. He couldn't be sure.) The cigarette wasn't working.

* * *

**august 1965**

_second. it hurts to watch him. he shines. he’s brighter than the sun, he’s too beautiful for your eyes. it’s hard to look at him. it’s even harder to look away from him. you’re going blind._

Peter stood in the hall, waited for Morse to see him. The secretary was talking to him, smiling at him, staring at him with big doe eyes and a smile that said everything. Peter felt his own throat tightening. Who was she, to talk to Morse like she knew him? (Peter didn't bother answering his own question. He knew she had far more right than he did.) 

"Morse," Peter said, finally, approaching them when it seemed like Morse was never going to notice him. He never was, the way he was staring at the ground, rubbing the back of his neck, avoiding eye contact with even the secretary. 

Morse snapped around, mouth opening and closing like a fish. "My colleague," he said, when he'd recovered. "DS Jakes — Miss Alice Vexin."

Peter tried to clear his throat of the fist around it, tried to ignore that this pretty single girl was talking to Morse. "You're the one who found the body," he said, taking her in. As if. It wasn't like he knew Morse's type. "We're going to need to talk to you, miss. Don't go anywhere. Morse." He stood again, watched over his shoulder as Morse smiled politely back at her and they stumbled their way through a hasty goodbye. He caught the smile on Morse's lips, tried to figure if it was genuine or not. He couldn't — he didn't think he'd ever seen Morse smile. He hoped it wasn't, hoped it was just a pleasantry, hoped he'd get to see the real thing. Surely the real thing was better, it had to be. He took a lengthy drag on his cigarette, fixed the girl with a look.

"You know her?"

"We were up at the same time. At Oxford."

Peter felt the fist closing around his throat again, tighter this time. He remembered when he couldn't stand the thought of knowing Morse at Oxford; now here he was, wishing he'd known Morse before he became the brooding man he was now. He hungered for sunny picnics with Morse and his stupid, pretentious crowd of scholars, but mostly just the thought of Morse smiling. "I know what 'up' means. Girlfriend, was she?"

"What makes you say that?"

"Way she looked at you." What Peter wanted to say was that she looked at Morse the way he wanted to look at Morse. What he wanted to say was that she looked at him like he was the only person in the world who existed, who mattered, and that when he was in front of her she wanted nothing more than for their conversation to be theirs and only theirs, now and forever. And what he wanted to say was that he, Peter, wanted Morse to open his fucking eyes and see him, Peter, looking at back at him, letting him know that he was the most brilliant and beautiful person who mattered to _him,_ Peter, keeping a little piece of every conversation, every interview, every question they shared for himself, now until the end of his life.

* * *

**december 1966**

_third. your ears are tuned to his voice. you could pick him out in a sea of thousands. his voice makes pretty singers who sing pretty songs sound dull. his voice makes everything else sound ugly._

The prison was loud, echoey and cavernous and altogether the worst place Peter could ever imagine having a conversation in. 

"I don't even know where to begin," he said finally, a beginning in itself.

Morse sucked his lips against his teeth. "Then don't." His voice was hollow, so soft it would be lost in the calls of the other prisoners and the guards, it would have been, if Peter hadn't been waiting for his response, as ugly as it was.

"The hearing began today," Peter said. He waited for the sound of it, of Morse's voice, brittle and precariously evened out. It didn't come. "I'm due to testify tomorrow."

Morse's gaze snapped up; Peter dropped his immediately. He couldn't bear it, not Morse's scrutiny, not his pity. Morse was the one in prison, for fuck's sake. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice this time stronger than the last.

"For what?"

"That you have to."

Peter shook his head. "It had to happen sooner or later," he said, rubbing his forehead. The sound — Jesus, not the _sound,_ it was _noise_ , not just from the prison but from his own fucking head, never-ending buzzing and voices that just never shut up, his own nine year-old self banging on the walls and trying to get out in front of that committee tomorrow — the sound and the noise and the voices everywhere were making it hard for him to concentrate. And there was nothing even to concentrate on, just this nonexistent conversation that both he and Morse were having so much difficulty trying to maintain. He thought about how this was one conversation they'd have that would be his and only his, never Thursday's, never Bright's, never anyone else's. 

"I love you," he said.

Morse made a strangled cry and buried his face in his hands. "Don't say that," he said. Peter held his voice, fragile and wounded, in his mind for a second. "You failed me."

The words were accusatory and angry, Peter knew they were meant that way. But they felt soft and Christ, they were his, they were Morse's anger and hurt at _him_. "I know," he said. "It would have been different if I'd gone with you, I know it would've. You're here because I couldn't. I'm sorry for it."

"I know." Morse took his head out of his hands. His eyes were red. Peter had a feeling his own eyes were, too. "Why should I ever forgive you for it?"

And if the words were supposed to mean what Peter was sure they did mean, he knew he was right, that he did love Morse, because he would never hear them from anyone else the way he did from Morse, angry and resigned and bitter but at the same time agreeable and beautiful and correct. And _God,_ Peter loved him, loved him with his entire body, with all the voices in his head that could never be half as beautiful and right as Morse's, and by God, he'd say it again. He loved him.

* * *

**april 1967**

_fourth. the color of his eyes is blue enough to drown in. he is turning you into a clichéd love-wrecked being. you’re drowning, always sinking. down, down, down._

Peter couldn't stop looking at him. He couldn't, couldn't stop drinking him in, his hair and his hands and his eyes and his beautiful radiant face. He'd missed him so much, seeing him hunched over his desk, pinching the bridge of his nose, clicking his pen. So he took him in hungrily, traced the lines of his body over and over with his eyes, rejoiced in the fact that the man he'd thought was lost for so long was back before him, in person, speaking and thinking and being his irritatingly _right_ usual self.

"Come for a drink," Peter suggested as lightly as possible, long after Thursday had left, late in the evening. He'd been hanging around, dragging his feet on cataloging evidence, waiting for Morse to stand up and grab his coat, but it was impossible to outlast Morse at work. "Celebrate your first day back."

Morse stared up at him and opened his mouth, about to say no, but thought better of it and stood up without protest.

The evening was overly warm for April, oddly breezy but somehow stagnant and humid. Peter took his jacket off and carried it under his arm. Morse did the same. They walked in silence, watched their feet move along the paved cobblestone, both wordlessly agreed to pass by the pubs they usually frequented until Morse glanced up at a street sign and said, "Might as well go to one of ours."

"Might as well," Peter agreed.

They ended up at his flat. Morse stood to the side, waited patiently and surveyed his unfamiliar surroundings while Peter undid the lock and opened the door for him. They both stayed like that, prim and proper; the two of them stood face to face in the foyer, statuesque, holding their jackets between them.

"I've missed you," Peter said finally. "When you went on that bender — not hearing from you after you got out — God, I've just missed having you about the station." He wanted to say more, about how he missed Morse's input where it wasn't needed and how he missed buying three pints instead of just the two, but he stopped, because he wanted Morse to say it, how _he_ missed being at the station and how he missed all the disparaging banter. Peter forced himself to look at him, look Morse in the eyes, drink in that fucking color, the question marks reflecting in them.

"Peter," Morse said, almost pityingly, and Peter hated how it made him feel, how it made him ashamed and so consumed — with love? excitement? he wasn't sure — hearing his name on Morse's lips like a fucking prayer. He dropped his jacket to the side.

"Morse, Jesus Christ," Peter whispered, closing the distance between them.

He felt like a teenager again, the way his heart and his stomach and his entire body seized up when Morse put his hands on his waist and kissed back, when he pulled away and Morse leaned forward this time, so aware of everything around them and yet not at all, like he was going to shrivel up and die if Morse let go. He ran his fingers through Morse's hair, grabbed at it, held his face and wished to God this could last forever. He couldn't breathe. 

It was horrific how little it had taken him to slip like this, Peter thought, when they were pushing each others' shirts off their shoulders amidst murmurs of _Christ_ and _fuck_ and everything else. Not even a drop of alcohol in his system. But he didn't want it, he decided, because he wanted to remember every second of this, every single detail, the freckles on Morse's shoulders and the curves of his face and his lashes and his _eyes,_ his fucking eyes, and the way their mouths moved against each other. Every bit of it: the tug of his skin between Morse's teeth, the crushing weight of his arms, the gasp for air, the kiss — _God, the kiss_ — it could have killed him, not breathing. He couldn't get enough. And every movement meant everything, meant _I'm sorry_ and _I've missed you too_ and _how did this happen_ and _I'm so glad it did._

They laid in his bed together, bare skin pressed to bare skin, let their limbs tangle. Peter stared into Morse's eyes, held them. His breath still caught when he looked at them. 

He pressed a kiss to Morse's chest, gentle and no longer wanting, just a gift from one to another. _This is yours,_ he wanted to say. _Kiss my heart and you'll feel it too. I love you, I love you, I love you._

* * *

**june 1967**

_fifth. you know him. you love him. through a thousand lifetimes, across millions of stars, you’d find him, you’d never leave him. you love him, till death do you part._

Peter watched as Morse wandered off down the sidewalk and turned at the street corner, wondering if this was it, the last time they'd ever see each other. He wanted Morse to turn around, look over his shoulder, cast one last gaze back at him. He wanted to see his face one last time, emblazon it into his mind forever. He wanted to call his name one last time, run up to him and kiss him — he would have, too, if it hadn't been broad daylight, if practically the whole station hadn't been just inside. He almost did anyway, just for the hell of it. Leaving for America and marrying Hope was the right thing, and he didn't mind it. What he minded was leaving Oxford, leaving Morse, leaving him for what would probably be forever. 

He wished he hadn't kissed Morse that first night he'd been back at the station, that he hadn't invited him for a drink. He wished he hadn't invited him again, that he hadn't let himself keep on saying yes to Morse. It made everything so much more cruel. It was maybe the most painful goodbye he'd ever said. He wanted Morse to tell him the story of _Carmen_ and _Lucia di Lammermoor_ and _Tosca,_ to look back at him with that exasperated affection, to hear Morse say his own name once more, to quote fucking poetry at him, something tragic and Latin and beautiful for him to think about when he fell asleep. One more time, just once more. 

Peter felt his name, heavy on his tongue. _Morse._ There it sat, weighing him down. He went back inside. Later that night, Hope drew him into bed, curled herself around him, draped her body over his. He wondered if she could feel Morse's name on his lips when he kissed her, wondered if she knew that he loved her but Morse would forever be the one he _loved,_ really, truly, and deeply, with his entire soul, enough to make his heart swell so much his chest might burst.

It was Hope who found the letter, tucked in his jacket pocket, when they were on the bus. "It's addressed to you," she said, handing it to Peter, barely looking at it. She didn't wait for him to open it before looking away, mercifully giving him the tiniest of bubbles within which he could take it all in. And he did: he felt his breath hitch in his throat, felt that fist now, all too familiar, clenching around him, the emotion bubbling within his lungs, just as it had all felt two years ago when he'd handed Morse that shirt. 

Peter wedged his thumb under the sealed flap and tore it open, unfolded the note inside. _Peter,_ Morse's handwriting said, and he closed his eyes for half a second to for it, to replay the glorious sound of Morse's voice saying his name in that dark space of his flat. _For the child._

He wound an arm around Hope's shoulders, pressed his lips to her hair. He moved his fingers absently in midair, itching for the ghost of Morse's hair and freckled skin. _Fuck moving away,_ Peter thought. Fuck everything else, _especially_ doing the right thing, if the right thing meant this letter, this single sentence that meant Morse understood that they were over and this could never be. It was him, always him and forever him. Peter felt sick, wanted to vomit again, wanted to ask the driver to stop, but he couldn't, not when he knew that if he got off this bus he'd never get back on, just so he could run back and say _I love you_ one more time, see if he was the one forever and ever to Morse.

_(sixth. he loves you, too.)_

And what Peter didn't know, and couldn't know, and wouldn't ever know, was that to Morse, the letter was a coda to another letter that never made it into the envelope, the one last _I love you_ that never got said. And it was for him, Peter, always and forever. Only him.

**Author's Note:**

> i woke up at 5:30 am intending to start revising for my comparative politics final but i couldn't focus because i was thinking too hard about this quote (from [here](https://petersjakes.tumblr.com/post/187649366129/bedlamsbard-first-he-touches-you-and-you-light)) smh so now it's 7:30 pm, i've been to my one (1) class, work, my lesson, and rehearsal today and yeah all i've done is write this smh smh...might fuck around and make a gifset to go with it
> 
> couldn't remember how to write but it's monday so like whatcha gonna do ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> as uszh my tumblr's [here](http://petersjakes.tumblr.com). hope yall are well. -i.


End file.
